


before autumn

by ohroses



Category: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (Video Game)
Genre: A few liberties were taken for the sake of the Narrative, Character Study, Gen, Pre-Canon, Research
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23944024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohroses/pseuds/ohroses
Summary: Spring before summer, summer before autumn, and this before separation.The Divine Heir awakens, there's a giant snake metaphor, and Wolf is the best informant a 10-year-old lord could ask for.
Relationships: Emma & Sekiro | Wolf, Kuro | The Divine Heir & Emma, Kuro | The Divine Heir & Sekiro | Wolf
Comments: 16
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of beating Lady Butterfly, I will begin to post my pre-canon Wolf and Kuro bonding fic. This is an attempt at filling in the gaps. The ending will be obvious, but the journey is the purpose!!!
> 
> I am also in love with the way this game uses botanical details to give us a full story through seasons alone. Silver grass denotes late summer & early autumn, the red maple leaves imply late autumn, and the snow early winter. We have this frenzy of seasonal symbols converging to tell us a story about the land. Then, when we go to the memories, we see the estate with hydrangeas in full bloom. Hydrangeas are spring-summer flowers. Isn't that beautiful? I cannot shut up about it. Anyway. 
> 
> I love this game.

**The Estate; Emma's patient**

* * *

“Do you think the wolf resents his duty?”

Emma looked up from the neat rows of powder and herb in her travelling case, feeling a little dazed by the change in conversation. She was focused mostly on the treatment, but she was certain that they had, just a moment ago, been discussing whether or not the little lord could visit the markets soon. This sudden change of topic was confusing, but it was also concerning. “I’m very sorry, young master. I was distracted and I seem to have completely lost the thread of our conversation," she said, and pressed a hand to his forehead. The fever had not become worse. Strange, that he seemed so distressed. 

Kuro looked away, his gaze falling down to his hands for a moment, his anxiety clear in his little face. "Do you think he resents _me?"_

“Young master,” Emma said gently, “who do you mean?”

“Sometimes I think he does. I see him only sometimes, but his face is so drawn and sad. I know his father left him here to take care of me. I miss Father. I'd miss him if he left me somewhere, too; do you think Wolf misses the owl?” His voice was quiet, but Emma could hear the tense earnestness in it.

It was not his usual way; for once, he seemed almost his age. A child like any other child. She had not known him long, but she had learned his ways and his habits as she did the personalities of all her patients. Quick profiles to be accessed when something that was not inherent to the human body interfered with the treatment. Her impression of him had been simple but heavy; he looked like a child, but he did not behave like one.

She abandoned the work of the medicine for a moment and searched his face for some clue that would tell her _why_ he seemed to be possessed, suddenly, with this strange fear and uncharacteristic worry. “Why do you think that this wolf resents you?”

There was only silence for a time, so she let the matter drop, and returned to her work. He would reveal his thoughts, or he would guard them; her duty was what lay between her two hands. But much time passed, and when she turned to give him the medicine, she saw that the boy had fallen asleep.

She placed the little line of powder in a shallow cup and left it beside him, then she bade the attendant outside to administer it in the usual way when he woke. That accomplished, she left the estate, and the snow gave way to the old autumn leaves beneath her as she left the lines of buildings and approached the great bridge, towards the edge of the crowds of merchants. Sure enough, there was a new set of footsteps behind her as she went, steady, and a polite distance away.

The man in question himself, she realized. The young master had been appointed a shinobi guardian. She knew the shadow followed her through the make-shift market on the bridge, through the gaggle of laughing children and shouting peddlers, and all the way to the edge of the estate's grounds. She stopped at the end of the bridge and looked back over the lights and the people and the smoke of cooking and the sound of laughter and saw that figure as a black shadow against the golden lantern glow. She bowed, politely, and left him there.

Emma departed quietly and without ceremony, like the honest physician she was, and turned the case over in her mind, leaving out the details that did not seem pertinent to her work. As an impertinent detail, the thought of that moment on the bridge did not return to her mind again until far later, when, after a passage of seasons, she remembered the quiet, uncharacteristic distress of the little lord in his illness.

She laughed, quietly, into her sake. And when the sculptor asked what had got her in such a good humor, she shook her head and smiled.

“Just a thought,” she said.

**The Estate; Home.**

* * *

“Um… Wolf?”

There was no answer, but there was a clear presence just beyond the sliding screen. He could see an almost shadow through the thin material, near a printed flower and below a crane in flight. It made him a little nervous, but it was not in a bad way. It was the same feeling he got when he was listening to stories too scary for children, unheard and unseen, hidden in the crowds or behind corners. It was a thrill, he realized. The almost shadow shifted in the dark, and after a while he was not sure if he had seen it or if he had imagined it.

The silence went on, and there was no answer to his call. It felt sad, and lonely, to be ignored when he called out. He was used to it, a little, because everyone was always so often busy and far away, but it never got less lonely. 

The night stretched on, and no sleep came. Not even after he stopped straining his eyes in the dark to see the shadow beyond the screen. Though his body ached, and his bones hurt to move, he did not want to sleep anymore. It was a restless feeling, and it did not fade even when he shut his eyes and hoped it would.

So, he crept from the bed, certain that his guardian had long since vacated his place and returned to some distant roost for the night. He was certain now that he saw no shadow, and it had been a long time since he had called out, so Kuro slid the screen open and stepped outside into the cold and dark night. His feet were bare, but he had a sudden want for visiting the roosters. He loved them dearly, and though the servants deserved to sleep unbothered, he was certain he could visit them without causing a big fuss.

Planning a route from his shoes to the least creaky hallway, Kuro turned to slide the screen shut behind him, but a shadow caught his eye and he leapt nearly through it in his terror. “Wolf!”

The shinobi looked at him with some confusion, but he said nothing. There was always a look of sadness on his face, Kuro thought. This confusion was different, new, and it suited him. They watched each other in the moonlight until it became clear that neither was going to say anything.

Kuro bit his lip. “You didn’t answer when I called,” he said, aware of how small his voice sounded. “I thought you had left.”

Wolf’s eyebrows drew together, and his normally sad-looking face appeared more confused than sorrowful. “I awaited your command, my Lord.”

There was a beat of silence between the sound of crickets and night creatures on the wind, and there came to him a scent that he had always thought to be the smell of snow melting to reveal old leaves. Kuro said nothing, but then Wolf spoke again: “I await your command still, my Lord.”

It was something Wolf had never done before, it felt like a door had been politely held open for him to pass through, and Kuro’s spirits lifted to hear it.

“I want to visit the flock,” he said. “Will you help me?”

Wolf looked at Kuro’s bare feet and his thin sleeping gown. “You’ve been ill,” he said, his voice low and reluctant.

“I can get dressed, but I don’t want to wake Miss Nogami,” Kuro said. “I don’t know how to get to my clothes without waking her.”

There was a glimmer of understanding in Wolf's eyes that Kuro caught. “I can do that."

“I’ll wait for you here. Thank you, Wolf.”

Wolf looked at him for a long moment before nodding. He left and went down the treacherous hallway without a single sound.

That morning, Lady Nogami of the Hirata estate woke her son and fixed him breakfast, then, as was her habit, she went to check on Kuro in his room. He looked to be sleeping peacefully, but just as she was about to leave, her eye caught the shine of something inky black by his pillow. Loathe to wake him, she stood in the entrance to the room and tried to come up with a reason as to why there was a single, black feather beside her charge’s head.

Kuro had, since then, begun to compose a little list in his head. There was a line down the middle. On one side, there was the way _he_ thought. On the other, like a little legend on a map, there was the way a _shinobi_ might think. Specifically, he amended silently, the way Wolf might think.

That moonlit night after his strange illness was enlightening; he had thought that silence was silence, the absence of words like an absence of meaning. But now he knew that to Wolf, it was a polite patience.

He called out for Wolf as he folded the bedclothes and put them away in the corner of the room, and when there was no answer, Kuro smiled, already belting a warm, heavy haori about his middle. “I want to go see the merchants on the bridge, tonight,” he said into the silence. “Will you accompany me?”

“As I always do,” Wolf said, in a manner of confusion that Kuro had begun to associate with him as much as he did sorrow.

“I don’t mean I want a shadow,” Kuro corrected politely. “I mean I want you to accompany me.”

Wolf looked more confused than ever, but he did not refuse. He inclined his head, still just as polite as Kuro himself, and spoke: “As you command.”


	2. Chapter 2

**The Bridge; Snakeskin**

* * *

His body felt much stronger in the sunlight than it had in the dark, but that restlessness did not fade. The minister and his attendants were not at the estate that fortnight, and so Kuro was free from the strict rigor of his studies. He used to find comfort in them, in the press of the study and the books and the written words around him. But that illness had awoken something in him. It was strange, he thought. That itching feeling of needing to do and see and feel… He had never felt it so intensely before.

The bridge was filled with sound and smell and light, and the joy of being out of his room, out of the kind physician’s watchful custody, drove him to each stall with purpose.

But that restless action eventually found a target in a crowd of children at the edge of the bridge, and the linger of whispers that faded as he approached. People watched him, not suspiciously, but with worry. People of the estate, blue-clad warriors he recognized by sight and sound, their gazes either lingered on him in a way that was heavier than it was before, or it went to the edge of the bridge with true fear in the depths of their eyes.

At first, he thought it was because he had been ill. Wolf had been worried too, after all. But that was not the case. Wolf trailed after him as he approached the swarm of children and villagers and stood behind him as everyone created around them a half-moon of space, drifting far from Kuro and his shinobi without hesitation.

Kuro leaned over the wooden railing and looked out into the river, and there he saw what the people were scared of.

The snakeskin hung like discarded cloth in the water.

For the first time, he felt a connection with the rest of the estate’s children, for they all gathered together to watch as it swayed with the flow of the water, stuck upon rocks in the river. It felt like watching something sacred and forbidden, though he did not know why he got that feeling. Perhaps it was because so many men were down by the rocks too, desperately trying to move it along the river and out from between the rocks. They did this with pikes, careful not to touch the skin directly. Every soul on the bridge was either watching the snakeskin, or it was heavy on their minds.

“My lord?”

Kuro looked away from the sunken look of it, like what he imagined a drowned man from a legend to look like, and saw Wolf watching him with some concern. That was a new, recent addition to the list of things Wolf’s face could tell him. Grief, sadness, confusion, and concern.

“Do not worry,” Kuro said, over the hushed conversation around him, “I don’t plan to dive into the water after it.”

Wolf’s concern became confusion, and then, ah, there it was. The phantom new expression. He did not know what to call it. It came with a sigh, always. “I did not assume you would. Do you require anything of me?”

Poor Wolf, Kuro thought. He hated being around this many people. After one last look at the snakeskin in the water, Kuro left the bridge and the other children, and went back to the market’s stalls, stopping at each one he came across. “Do you think it is real?”

“The creature’s skin?”

Kuro inspected the beautifully large and round peaches the farmer had displayed and bought two. “I have heard of things like illusions before, that look and feel real, and act real, but are only lies conjured by a master illusionist.”

“That was no illusion, my lord.”

“How would one tell an illusion apart from something real?” Kuro handed one of the peaches to his shinobi, who took it after a moment of reluctance.

“My lord, you did not have to—”

“You should enjoy yourself,” Kuro said. “And I should apologize for dragging you out here on my whim. I like peaches. Do you?”

“They’re… good." Wolf brought the peach to his lips. “My apologies. Thank you.”

“How would you know an illusion from reality?”

Wolf did not answer, and he did not speak as they passed the last of the stalls, where a perfume seller who tried to spray some jasmine’s essence at them. Kuro liked it, but he wanted to hear what Wolf would say when they were alone. Then he realized how close he was to the edge of the water, and thus to the snakeskin in the currents. “Can I go to see the skin?”

Wolf looked down at the rocky shore below, where the men were still poking at the skin without success. Kuro found their fear of it a little odd, but it seemed like Wolf had some misgivings about it as well.

“If you desire to,” he said, finally. They left the main path and made their way down the grassy slope, the distinct scent of fish growing stronger as they approached the water. Something crunched under Kuro’s feet, and when he looked down to see what had made the sound, he found bones.

Little, delicate, curved fishbones.

“Strange,” Kuro remarked.

“That is a clue." Wolf said nothing more, but when Kuro looked at him curiously, he continued and said: “illusions do not often take into account the environment. And not logic.”

“Is this logical?”

“Look at the skin, tell me what you see.”

“I see a massive snakeskin—Oh.” Kuro realized suddenly what Wolf meant. “You mean it had to have eaten, and then shed its skin here, and then left? Would a snake cough up bones?”

“No,” Wolf said. “Owls do that, but not snakes.”

“So, something else killed the fish?”

“Not necessarily. An illusion would tell you very clearly what to think, and it would play on your emotions before your mind.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fear and grief are the tools of illusions,” Wolf said, as though he were reciting something.

“Do you know much about them?” Kuro watched a man finally dislodge a bit of the skin, and then the swooping curve of the empty, cloth-like thing began to unwind from the rocks. Like a veil in the wind, it seemed to finally unfurl. A cheer went up on the bridge from the children, and an answering call from the men, too. Kuro watched them in silence, and then followed the snakeskin as it continued down the river, under the bridge, and far beyond.

“I do,” Wolf told him. 

“Tell me what you think happened?”

“I think, recently, the snake passed through here, and the fish were so afraid of it they threw themselves from the water.”

“Where did the skin get shed?”

“Upriver. Not here. The skin followed, in time.”

“Strange,” Kuro murmured. “I know I was ill, but I did not hear word of a giant snake at all.”

Wolf did not answer, but the fish bones broke like twigs under their feet as they left the shore. The scent of rotting fish remained in Kuro’s head until Lady Nogami brought him the water for a bath. She left him there, and he remembered the jasmine the perfumist had sprayed at him. He buried his nose in his sleeve, searching for the scent that had enchanted him for a moment, but it was gone.

It was only as he drifted off to sleep, now smelling less like fish, that he realized that the snake must have passed under the bridge during his illness.

With this strange connection established between his body and the strange being in the water, Kuro dreamt that night of a snake wrapping itself about him, gently, and then falling away when he noticed it was made of jasmine petals.

He awoke to the fainter, but still noticeable, scent of fish.

**The library, or what passes for a library, since it is Kuro’s room and it is filled with fairytales and the distinct scent of fish**

* * *

The tales were often about treasure, he noticed. He’d read a great many of the texts around the estate, often in a frenzied hunger, like a starving beast offered a feast. He devoured books and manuals and treatises and poetry, and he sat often till the sun rose in the sky twice, napping and eating only when ordered to do so, reading stories. But now he wanted only fairy stories. Folktales, legends, _stories_ , in the true and essential sense. The source of it all.

There were a few stories about enormous snakes that guarded treasure, that guarded gold, that guarded temples lost to time. But none about giant snakes that passed through rivers in the spring.

None about snakes that brought mysterious illness. He could barely think that last part, because it felt so silly and foolish, but something in his soul had looked at that snake’s skin in the water and had felt something intense and longing. He had wanted to know, to see, to understand—

And he felt as though he’d die if he did not at least, in the privacy of his own quarters, admit that he thought the snake meant something. Even if it meant nothing to anyone else, he hoped it meant something to him.

“My lord,” came the voice at the screen door. “You summoned me?”

Kuro put the book he was reading down, one of the few times he would do so in one of his frenzied obsessions without the pressing need for food or water. “Wolf,” he said. “You’re my shinobi, are you not?”

He could almost sense Wolf’s familiar confusion, and his concern, through the screen door. He slid it open, and indeed there it was, that confusion was plain on Wolf’s face.

“I am, my lord.”

“I want to know more about the snake.” Kuro flipped through the book in his hands, and the page opened finally to a beautiful, golden snake winding itself around a mountain. “More stories.”

“My lord,” Wolf said, and that concern was still strong. “Why?”

“I am restless,” Kuro told him. “I have been for a while now. I cannot explain it. I just want to do _something_ besides… I guess I am still doing what I always do. I read; I study— I stay here.”

“I will search,” Wolf promised, and slid the screen shut. “Please rest, my lord.”

“I have rested too long.” Kuro turned away from the door and heard it shut the rest of the way. His blood burned, like it had during the illness, but not terribly. There was no fever now, no pain, only that restless sensation he had felt the night Wolf had taken him to see the roosters. “Let me know what you find.”

“I will. Rest.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Wolf's new duties**

* * *

Kuro’s restlessness did not fade after that, but he better disguised it as good cheer. Wolf, of course, was not fooled, but he said nothing and did his duties without question.

Other things were steadily effaced from the surface of the world too. The scent of fish was gone, the odd fish bones were cleared from the shore, the snakeskin was not seen again in the rivers nor the reservoir, and the illness’s strange effects went nearly forgotten by all who witnessed them. But not by Wolf.

The young lord’s strength had reared its head in a way Wolf had not expected. Lord Kuro was willful and he not beyond extending his resources for his own ends. For a child, and he was a child, the young lord seemed to easily adapt to having a shinobi at his service. He sought the advice of his father; he sent an encrypted letter to the forests in the hopes that perhaps his masters’ varied wisdom, experience, and guidance would help him in his new task as not only the child’s guardian, but as his right hand.

The response came quickly, quicker than he had expected, and the contents were brief.

_If he is taken, bring him back at any cost._

This comforted Wolf, for the message was clear. If the Divine Heir was to be taken, his duty would be the same. Whether Lord Kuro extended himself towards ancient gods, hidden valleys, or fairytales, or not, it did not matter. Wolf extended his net of informants under cover of night, casting his eyes deep into Ashina, touching on every rumor and breath that was exhaled in the mountains. He adjusted his training regimen to include the scaling of mountains, just in case, and the tense soreness of his muscles after such attempts were always a little too familiar, a little too reminiscent of his time in the forest with Butterfly and the others.

But soon, like it had then, the pain disappeared as he worked, and the training became as easy as breathing. This was the part he loved. The feeling of flying through the air, of weightless strength, of power. 

Information flowed readily that spring, and well into the summer, and often he heard of the movements of the snakes and beasts of the valleys before the townspeople ever did. If Ashina Genichiro found a red-eye and thrust it upon the troops of his enemies, Wolf and Kuro had already known of its appearance in the valleys beneath.

When summer ended, he found another snakeskin. It was strewn atop the cliffs alongside the outskirts of Ashina.

The next day, Kuro complained of a headache; an unusual occurence that had not happened since that mysterious illness. Wolf monitored it closely.

**The Estate; The Tea in Question is Hot Indeed.**

* * *

Tea was more divine after exertion. The heat against the icy cold of autumn was bracing, and though it was not familiar to him, he enjoyed the taste. His father and his father’s companions had always preferred the bite of sake to the mellow calm of tea, and he had picked up on that taste, though not to the point of excluding Lord Kuro's taste for tea.

“Did it hurt?”

Wolf looked up from his cup to see Lord Kuro staring at his face. He brought a hand up to his mouth, confused, assuming that he was referring, somehow, to the tea. “It is only… tea,” he said, as neutrally as he could.

For some reason, Lord Kuro found this worthy of laughter, and the sound of it left Wolf at a loss. Lord Kuro did not laugh often, more often he smiled, but when he did laugh it was child-like, almost the only time he tended to be so. The only other time was when he was curious. 

The screen was open wide so that Lord Kuro could watch as autumn began to show its face about the estate, and though that chill was strong in the mornings and evenings, warm clothes did much to alleviate it. Wolf brought the tea to his lips again, and it was hot, but it was clear now that the tea could not have been what Lord Kuro meant. He sat in silence, awaiting whatever Lord Kuro would say, enjoying the contrast of the heat with the cold of the snow on his face.

And sure enough, after a few moments of laughter, Lord Kuro spoke again. The serious, somber concern on his face was gone, and his face was peaceful in the wake of that rare mirth. “I meant to ask about your scar,” Lord Kuro said, and with his finger drew a line across his own cheek and eyebrow.

Wolf brought a hand up to the scar in question, which he had forgotten existed for a moment.

“Did you receive it in battle?”

“You could say that,” Wolf answered honestly. But when Lord Kuro pressed forward with a look that could only be described as eager concern, Wolf shook his head. “It is not what you think,” he said. That strange curiosity did not abate, however; Lord Kuro looked as though he might poke the scar himself and ask it a few questions, which was a thought that distressed Wolf. What did one do when poked by a child?

“Then how did you get it?”

“My father,” Wolf told him, still honest. Lord Kuro did not seem to be satisfied with this answer, but he took it in silence for a time. Wolf could see him thinking, but when no other question came, his study of the young lord’s face fell to futile searching.

Kuro and Wolf sipped their tea in peace, watching what remained of last night's brief snowfall in the garden, and the silence reigned absolute as the little lord pondered Wolf’s words.

“Why would your father hurt you?”

Wolf looked down at Lord Kuro and realized that he would not be satisfied with half-answers and vague tales, for his eyes were lit with that strange restless light he had seen only a few nights ago. “He found me on a battlefield, alone, and his sword cut me.”

“Why did his sword cut you?”

Wolf looked away, uncomfortable with the attention for some reason, but he did not want to ignore the question, either. “It was very sharp,” he replied. His lord did not look satisfied, but thankfully, the matter was put to rest, and the silence descended like snow again.

“It was very funny that you thought I meant the tea, but it was not unreasonable.” Lord Kuro sounded tentative and the smile in his voice was gone. He was, Wolf realized, worried that he had caused some offense. 

“It was… funny,” Wolf said. “You did not offend me.”

“You didn’t laugh,” was the quick response.

“I don’t laugh often,” Wolf assured him. “It was nothing personal.”

“Oh?”

Wolf, suddenly remembering the incident with the roosters at midnight, realized that he was speaking to a young child. “Please do not test that,” he said.

“I didn’t even think of trying to. It didn’t cross my mind,” Lord Kuro said with some wistful sadness. “I guess an ordinary person would have tickled you after that. Hm." Kuro fell into silence, perhaps contemplating what ordinary people did, and Wolf did not tell him that he also had no idea what ordinary people did. When he spoke again, the sadness in his voice was gone. "How goes your search for the serpent?”

“I will come to you with something soon, my lord.”

“Wolf.” Wolf looked up and met the boy’s steady gaze. “Thank you,” Kuro said earnestly.

“It is your command, my lord.”

**The Snake; Local legend, unwritten about in books.**

* * *

Kuro did not forget what Wolf said, for the scar only strengthened his ever-present feeling that Wolf was not the stoic soldier he seemed. That perhaps, under the stern façade, Wolf was like him. It was probably just a desperate need, he thought, to see his own reflection somewhere. He felt foolish sometimes for thinking that way; but he could not help it.

Sometimes, when he was alone in his room, he felt like a child. He was a child, but the idea of it didn’t fit him. It hung over him like a loose skin, between his thoughts like the skin in the water. But then the memory of his bones burning inside him returned, the phantom pain of that strange illness they had had to send for the best physician in Ashina to treat, and the way Wolf had _listened_ to him that night, when the scent of the river was still in the air.

When that happened, he felt more than he was, and the restlessness began again.

When finally the quest for knowledge brought forth _something_ from the people of Ashina, it was in the form of an herbalist’s notebook. Wolf brought it to him one night, and by then the fairy tales had returned to their places in the compounds and libraries about the estate. All but a few had been carried away, but still a few remained. These were the ones most beautifully told. Kuro found that he liked reading them, and the strange notebook, regarded dubiously at first, became a similar object of fascination. 

Lady Nogami found Kuro buried in the little notebook the next morning, and she was greeted with a single question for her troubles.

“Did you know that those of the Sunken Valley had a tradition of offering themselves in marriage to a great white serpent?”

Lady Nogami, unprepared to deal with a ten-year-old lord with an unhealthy interest in the serpent fables of the distant valley, bowed politely and left, stepping aside quickly to let Wolf through. “Did you _have_ to bring him those fairy stories?” she asked.

“Yes,” Wolf told her, and he shut the screen door behind him.

“Wolf, did you hear—”

“I did, my lord.” He knelt before the young lord’s piles of books and waited, but Kuro seemed to be transfixed again by what he saw on the page.

“How did you know to find _this?”_ Kuro’s voice was full of admiration, and he flipped through the pages and relished them. “They worship the great serpents as gods,” he said after a moment. “To think such knowledge would be hidden here, in this notebook."

“It is my duty to find and procure knowledge.”

Kuro looked up at that with a slightly unfocused look on his face. He was clearly still thinking about the snakes. And the brides, probably. “I thought your duty was to guard _me_ ,” he said.

“It is.”

“I see.” Kuro placed a scrap of paper in the book to hold his place and came before Wolf with clear excitement. “I think I know why I was ill.”

Wolf watched him for a moment. “The snow?”

“That's an ordinary cause, I guess, but think about it: if that snake is revered as a god in the valley, and its power is such that fish throw themselves out of the water—”

“These were theories,” Wolf began to say, but Kuro could not be stopped.

He continued, determined, his gaze alight in a way Wolf had never seen before. “Perhaps its passage through here affected _me_ because it really is a god.”

“And it affected no one else?”

The silence that descended after that announcement was not out of awe, nor realization. No, Kuro fell silent because Wolf had asked exactly the right question.

“I have never been sick before,” Kuro confessed, confronting the true mystery behind the illness, the reason that the great Ashina Isshin’s own esteemed physician was brought to his bedside, the reason the fever had affected him so strongly. “Never, in my memory, had I felt that sort of pain. I was young when Mother and Father died, but I did grieve. It did hurt. But this… It was _in_ my body. I believe my mind was affected by feeling that pain, Wolf. I have not been the same since. I... I do not know what to think, but I know... I just know."

Wolf could think of nothing to say, but he wanted to say something. It was not his way to want to, but the sad slump of his lord's shoulders troubled him. "Why did they offer themselves in marriage to the serpent, my lord?"

Kuro's face brightened from the dull gray that his thoughts had brought on and he began to flip through the pages with a feverish delight. "I think it had to do with the serpent's viscera!" He showed Wolf a page that depicted the marriage ceremony, bridal palanquin and all. Something about it deeply unsettled Wolf. "Look, these notes speak of women and men returning as accepted brides, laden with viscera and _unharmed_. What do you think?"

"Sounds unpleasant."

"Well," Kuro turned the page back towards himself and squinted at it in the candlelight. "Yes. Yes, it really does. Let us offer a prayer of thanks that it is not our fate to be brides of this serpent."

Of course, Wolf took this in jest and did not offer the prayer alongside his smiling master. He'd regret that levity three years later, when he stood in the muck, covered liberally in slime, as the great white serpent of a certain valley trained its eye on him with intent. 

As it was too late to pray, he would curse instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sincerely hope you've been enjoying this story, and I hope you continue to. This is my favorite chapter of the bunch, so I have broken my habit of posting on Sundays. 
> 
> For clarification: Kuro is learning and growing, but the true nature of his heritage has not been made known to him. In the way of children I think he would kind of glean understanding, and recognize that he's different from other people, but I do not know that they'd easily tell a 10-year-old the truth so readily. I like to think about Kuro and loneliness. He's so kind and wise, and while that makes him lovable, I think it also makes him very, very lonely.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Minister’s Quarters; Technically, Kuro should not be here.**

* * *

He mentioned the snakeskin to his uncle. To his delight, confusion, and concern, the matter was taken very seriously, and the kind physician from Ashina was summoned again. And not just her.

His uncle summoned his advisors and some external forces to the estate, and the Owl himself seemed to answer the call. Kuro realized, then, that the curiosity that had driven him, that strange restlessness that had bubbled inside him after the fever broke, tended to manifest not in action but in a need to search and to find. The object of this restless urge would change sometimes, but most often it landed on whatever Kuro held in high regard, whatever he thought of often, and most of these things could be satisfied in books and in ink, but he could not find answers when it came to Wolf.

The great serpent, he could find stories about. But no stories existed about Wolf, or at least, none that wouldn’t have to be won from the Owl.

But Kuro did not want to ask the Owl. When the Owl arrived at the estate, lingering for a brief moment in the gardens before departing to some unknown location in the estate, Kuro watched him silently from his place in the flowers. He could have called out, he could have greeted him and perhaps spoken to Owl, but it seemed as though the Owl did not notice him, and for some reason this relieved Kuro.

This was where Wolf found him, moments later, to tell him that his uncle required him. He spoke patiently and without any emotion, as though he did not know that his own father, who he had not seen in a very long time indeed, was here. “Your father is here,” Kuro said as soon as Wolf came near.

Wolf nodded. “I heard. Did your uncle speak with you already?”

“Did you see him?” Kuro ignored the question, but he received no answer to his own either. He nearly dropped the entire matter then and there, a little ashamed of himself for ripping into something that might cause pain for Wolf. But the burning restlessness was back, so instead he asked, “What was it like, to train as a shinobi?”

“Difficult. My lord, are you certain that you feel—”

“I am fine,” Kuro said quickly, deflecting Wolf’s concern with practiced ease. “What sorts of things did your father teach you?”

“I was taught by many masters alongside my father.”

“What did you learn?”

“Many things.” Wolf looked out over the bushes and towards the paths beyond. “The minister wishes to see you,” he told his young charge again.

Kuro followed his gaze through the flowers until it landed on his uncle. “Were you happy to see your father?”

“I was pleased, yes,” Wolf told him, though he had caught only a glimpse of him in passing. He sensed it was important to Kuro that he said yes. “Go to your uncle, my lord.”

**Nothing is said.**

* * *

Kuro needed no further encouragement, and when Wolf was alone, he took the usual route out of the estate to the great bridge where the merchants often had festivals and night markets, and to the little shore by the river that flowed through the land. His father was already there, awaiting him patiently.

“That kid,” his father began, “is a nosy one. I daresay he’s worried about you. What do you say Wolf? Did you miss your old father dearly?”

“He misses his own family,” Wolf said flatly, ignoring the jibe. He wouldn’t say it to anyone but Kuro, and only if he was prompted to, but the truth was that he had felt some gladness to see his father again after so long.

He had not missed the loud, booming nature of even his father’s silence, nor had he missed the way everything he said was sarcastic, and yet honest in unexpected, shrouded ways that did not become clear until long after they were said. No, he did not miss those things. Not exactly. But he was glad his father had not changed.

“He does indeed,” Owl agreed, pulling Wolf from his quiet sadness. “Interesting, how all the power in the world will not erase that. But then, he does have all the power in the world.”

“He’s a child.”

“And your master.”

“He is,” Wolf said. The roar of the river rose in his ears as he watched his father’s strange, intent expression. There was something beneath the surface, as there often was with the Owl, but Wolf could not detect it this time.

“But he will not always be,” Owl said. “Let’s hope not, at least.”

“Father? Has there been some change?”

“They told him,” Owl said. Wolf did not know what to say to that, as he did not understand. “Or they will have, by now. The minister and the physician agreed it was time; the kid’s sharper than they expected. He probably would have wandered across something eventually. And good for him, too.”

Wolf inclined his head, quietly and privately proud of his young charge for his cleverness.

“Your duty is the same as it always was.” Owl patted his shoulder, familiar and heavy. Wolf used to buckle under that reassuring gesture, but not so anymore. “I hope you’ll come back home one day.” His tone became distinctly sarcastic in the way it often did when he approached honesty, but something was dark in it. He could not tell if it was honesty or bitterness. “I’d hate to lose my son and best soldier to a ten-year-old.”

“Father,” Wolf muttered. “Please.”

“May our paths cross again, my _dearest_ son. When they do, prepare to undertake your beloved father’s orders.”

“I’m your only son. Of course, Father.”

“I only chose one for a reason.” Owl turned away, towards the bridge, and leapt up into the wooden beams just beneath. “Remember the code, kid.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Don’t break my heart.”

But before Wolf could ask what he meant by this; his father was gone. Wolf, now alone on the rocky shore, watched the carp in the waves until his father’s laughter faded into it, inseparable from the steady sound of wave on rock. 

**Kuro’s room; a den of secrets into which no child has ever entered.**

* * *

Kuro sat in the silence and peace of his room; his old, now pointless research spread about him in a sea littered with wreckage from an old life. Knowing yourself unburied things, but at the same time the things he had thought and felt before knowing were buried under a new, heavy layer of snow. Snow that was supposed to have melted by now.

“My lord?”

With some relief, Kuro turned back to the one thing he knew was never going to change. Did he delude himself into thinking so? It did not matter, he found comfort in the steady, predictable, stern shinobi when he appeared. “Wolf,” he said in greeting, and went to the screen, sliding it open to reveal his shinobi. “It wasn’t the serpent at all. Or rather, it was. But—”

“I know.” Wolf did not dissemble, and even Kuro knew that the only things that should be shrouded would be that which would burden the lord or distract from the duty of the shinobi. So, Kuro did not look at his shinobi with betrayal. He did not feel any; but he did feel curiosity. Gentler than the old restlessness; he still wanted to know many things.

The serpents and the blood and the heritage took ahold of his thoughts now, but there was still space for that steady restlessness that seemed to live alongside his loneliness. “Did you know… Before?”

“Not what it entailed,” Wolf told him, still bowing. “My apologies.”

“Don’t apologize,” Kuro sighed. “You would have noticed anyway, even if you didn’t—I’m not _normal.”_ Kuro laughed when Wolf only shrugged at this dramatic declaration. “Wolf, one typically assures the other party that this is not the case.”

“I have not been around many normal children in my time,” Wolf said. But Kuro’s smile wavered when he offered it, and Wolf must have noticed, because he added, “You could have flown during our first meeting and I would have thought it was an oddity common to some children.”

“That’s the most I’ve ever heard you say at once, Wolf. And I believe you made a joke.”

“Reaction to the situation. The way of the shinobi.”

Laughing, Kuro gestured for Wolf to come inside and drew the sliding door across the wooden floors. “What now?”

“My lord?”

“I want to learn more, it’s about all I can do, anyway,” he said. “Lady Tomoe, Lord Takeru, the heresies mentioned in these fairytales; there’s so much I just don’t understand. Would you mind gathering information for me again?”

“I am at your service, my lord.”

“I have a lead this time.” Kuro reached out for one book in particular; the herbalist’s notes. “Senpou Temple,” he read, opening the notebook to the page that spoke particularly about the strange plant-life of the mountains beyond the outskirts. “He writes of blooms that do not wither and birds that resist the piercing of arrows; old gods come to earth,” Kuro muttered, flipping further in the notebook. “He sounds mad. But is that not what afflicts me?”

“Madness?”

“Another joke, Wolf?” Kuro asked quietly. “Was it your father’s visit that has left you in good spirits? I’m glad, in any case.” And when Wolf did not answer, neither to confirm nor to deny, Kuro asked, “When is the soonest you can leave?”

“Whenever you command, if your guard is ready to take over. And if my father has no other tasks for me.”

“Ah.” Kuro realized, then, that he’d have to run it all through his uncle. That would take time, and it would be irritating at best and impossible at worst. And through it all he had the distinct feeling that the Owl might not be _so_ generous with his son’s services. “This might be a longer project than the fairy stories.” Was Wolf his shinobi, or was he the Owl’s? Would it be possible to ascertain such a thing as a shinobi’s loyalties?

“We have time,” Wolf said, and Kuro was emboldened by that easy faith, so he picked up one of the remaining fairy stories and held it out in the little light that there was in the room.

He flipped through the pages and said, “I would want to come with you. If it at all possible.”

“It is my duty to protect you.”

Kuro laughed. “You could protect me at a temple,” he said. “What could possibly go wrong?” Wolf did not respond. Kuro decided this was too much levity for Wolf to deal with frankly, and so he added, as a truce, “We would need several plans in place, were I to accompany you, I assume.”

“Yes.”

The fairy stories came to mind. The one about the brides setting forth into the valley with only little bells that would cease ringing into the mountainsides when the snake accepted them inside. “A series of signals and secret paths,” Kuro murmured.

“My lord?”

“We could allay my uncle’s fears with details, plans, and reason. Maps, knowledge of the mountains. I’m sure of it.” He dug about through the remaining little pile of volumes for the one he kept for his own records and reached for the ink. This little book was mostly a bit of a journal and sometimes a little more than that. “Tell me what you think of these ideas,” Kuro said and settled against the wall and patted the floor beside him. When Wolf hesitated, Kuro laughed and told him this would be simpler than sneaking out to visit the birds.

Wolf, seeming to finally realize that this was what his duty would be for the remainder of the night, took up residence along the wall and tilted his head back. His eyes were on the little window beyond the little lamp, but Kuro knew he was listening. Wolf always listened.

“The first step is to go to Ashina castle and look through Tomoe’s records. We shall probably have to ask Genichiro for them,” and here he shuddered. At Wolf’s questioning glance, Kuro explained, “Lord Genichiro is a good man, but he can be… He’s very strong,” he decided to say instead, carefully. When Wolf shrugged and looked back to the window, Kuro relaxed.

“Do you think the general would talk to me?”

“Why not?”

“Hm. I’ll talk to him, too. And Emma again. She was at the meeting today; she gave my uncle counsel, I’m sure. I think her father was a monk. They probably know all about this sort of thing.”

“You mean your condition?” Wolf asked, and Kuro knew that though his voice sounded flat and low, he was relaxed enough about the situation to joke. Kuro would see the world, he realized. With Wolf by his side.

“My condition,” Kuro confirmed diplomatically, the excitement rising steadily as he spoke. “Emma’s probably the best person at the castle to talk to, actually. We could ask her about the source, if she knows of…” Kuro petered off, realizing how much he had assumed of his friend and how much he had put on his shoulders without thinking. Wolf met his gaze with a question, and Kuro shrugged apologetically. “I say _‘we,’_ but I only assume you’ll join me throughout all this as more than just a guardian.”

“The mystery does not fascinate me as it does you,” Wolf said with clear honesty. Before Kuro could look away and apologize, Wolf added, “But I would see this through.”

Kuro nodded. “In that case, I shall ask: Will you come with me?”

Wolf smiled just the slightest bit, that look of sorrow on his face a little bit farther away than it had been and bowed his head. “I await only the order itself, my lord.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this story. I had a lot of fun writing it, subtle though it might have been! Ah, I'm so in love with this game.

**Author's Note:**

> I thank you for reading!!


End file.
